The risk of a cyberattack is the biggest concern among business leaders in east Asia and the Pacific, according to the Regional Risks for Doing Business report from the World Economic Forum (WEF). The prominence of cyber risk reflects the rapid pace of digitalisation and the increasing sophistication of the region’s economies, according to the report. Southeast Asia also boasts…

Risk modelling firm RMS has compiled a list of ten ‘one in a 100-year’ natural catastrophes that could hit the Asia-Pacific region, highlighting the region’s vulnerability to environmental disasters. The region has already suffered a number of catastrophes in 2018, including Typhoons Jebi and Mangkhut, and the Palu earthquake in Indonesia. However, RMS believes there is a likely expectation of…

With the world’s leading climate change scientists warning that the world has only 12 years to limit a climate change “catastrophe”, in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published on 8 October, the focus on climate change has never been higher and regulatory scrutiny of how businesses assess and disclose their climate change risk exposures is set to increase…

Specialty insurer ArgoGlobal has appointed Michael Scala as chief underwriting officer for Asia-Pacific. Mr Scala has more than 35 years’ experience in the insurance sector, half of which was with Australian insurer QBE. Starting as a commercial manager in Western Australia in 1994, he eventually became head of US P&C at QBE Insurance North America in 2010. He has been…

Speciality (re)insurer Canopius has appointed Nattakorn Wattanaumphaipong as its new head of reinsurance, Asia-Pacific. Based in the (re)insurer’s Singapore office and reporting to reinsurance chief underwriting officer Jamie Wakeling, he will assume his new role from January 2019. Mr Wattanaumphaipong has been recruited from Swiss Re, where he held a number of senior roles during a 13-year career. Most recently…

Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) is set to buy rival Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) in a $5.6bn cash deal. The parent company of Marsh and Guy Carpenter said the deal for London-listed JLT has been approved by boards on both sides of the transaction. The bid amounts to $5.6bn in fully diluted equity value, or an estimated enterprise value of…

China Reinsurance is set to spend close to a billion dollars acquiring specialty insurer Chaucer from Hanover Insurance. The deal, which is still subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, is expected to close by early 2019. China Re will acquire Chaucer Insurance, Hannover Australia and Hannover Insurance International Holdings in return for $865m in cash and an $85m dividend to…

Average global commercial insurance prices have risen slightly for the third quarter in a row but were down a touch in continental Europe with the rating environment showing signs of stabilisation, according to Marsh…

Risk managers need to focus as much on people as machines when working out how to prevent data breaches, because human error is the second-highest overall source of the problem – and in some sectors the highest – according to the second quarterly report into notifiable data breaches, issued by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). The commissioner…

Lloyd’s has launched a new digital distribution platform to help local insurance businesses writing policies on behalf of the market around the world more easily access its underwriters to find solutions for insureds…